Mortal Kombat Legends: Cage Match

Mortal Kombat Legends: Cage Match fully embraces the personality of its self obsessed title character and it makes this entry the best since they started these. This has such a unique personality to it, helped by the fact that it's focusing on the best character. The one off story approach really works for these, so far.

Joel McHale remains a great choice for Johnny Cage, it's his third and best time as the character. He once again nails that complete lack of modesty and it's particularly impressive that despite being the lead as well as narrating the whole thing, he never becomes grating.

Ethan Spaulding's direction is helped massively by the 80s setting which allows him to imbue everything with so much more style than the previous ones (lots of neon in this one). The score by John Jennings Boyd and Eric V. Hachikian also benefits a lot from the 80s setting, giving it the opportunity to go very synth heavy.

The final instalment of the Mortal Kombat Legends Kollection series stars Johnny Cage as the lead in a retelling of his story from youth to star during the 1980's time period.

The animation is outstanding as is the entire series of films yet this film has a different atmosphere to stand out with the 1980's retro vibe by the bright fluorescent lights of purple, pink, orange, blue and other bright colors.

The story isn't too bad but it's still enjoyable to a degree. It becomes a little over the top in the second half when Johnny finds his co-star Jennifer (ironically they never mention her last name- as we find out its actress Jennifer Grey portraying an exaggerated version of herself as the end credits say "Jennifer Grey as Herself") then it becomes this demon, devil satanic underworld realm type of film air over the top characters turning into monsters and demons. The violence and gore turns up a notch.

Overall it's still highly enjoyable and possibly the second best of the series (Scorpion's Revenge is still superior) especially for fans of Mortal Kombat as well as Johnny Cage fans.

Very funny, cheesy 80's vibe and great action. If you don't like 80's action style you won't like this. Hilarious that Jennifer Grey plays herself in this movie. Love how they use cliche Hollywood tropes in the movie while simultaneously poking fun at them. I thought the action was good and the dialog was fun. Voice acting was superb, loved hearing Gilbert as a talent agent that was hilarious. Anyone who says this movie was bad needs to take a chill pill and stop being so serious. This was intended to be campy so embrace the suck and enjoy it for what it is: a 4th wall breaking, blood and guts action/comedy cartoon.

Some of the fight scenes have stage transitions and the fights end in bloody defeat for the other character, that was enough for me to like it.

Enjoyed the art style, even if it was for yet another 80's themed movie aesthetic.

So apparently I can't post a review that short. Now I have to fill up this review with words just to post about a movie that I enjoyed. It makes sense why some of the reviews on here that I've read seem to drag.

By the time I hit the word count I'm probably going to dislike the movie.

The performances from the voice actors were fine, although hearing Gilbert Gottfried's voice was a lovely surprise.

Mortal Kombat Legends: Cage Match is the fourth entry in the Mortal Kombat Legends DTV film series, and it is an interesting entry for me, as it not only stars Johnny Cage, one of my favorite MK characters, but is also a neat movie set in the 1980's.

In the movie, Johnny Cage is about to have his big break filming the movie Ninja Mime. However, the movie is in danger of being unfinished when co-star Jennifer Grey goes missing. Going to her mansion, she sees the place is a mess, and going into her bedroom, he witnesses two women fighting over a scroll. This puts him in the middle of a plot by a cult known as the Brotherhood of Shadow to bring their god, Shinnok, into Earthrealm.

Okay, for a Mortal Kombat movie, Cage Match not only succeeds in keeping the violence and gore the franchise is infamous for, but also making it a cheesy 80's action comedy that fits Johnny Cage's role of comic relief real well. Joel McHale returns to voice the Hollywood airhead from the first two Mortal Kombat Legends films after being absent in the last film, Snow Blind, and Jennifer Grey is in this voicing herself as well as Sareena. Also, Kelly Hu is the voice Ashrah, and Robin Atkins Downs returns as the voice of Shinnok, also reprising the role from Scorpion's Revenge and Battle of the Realms. But the greatest voice role here is David Doubldy, who is voiced by the late Gilbert Gotfried, this being his final film role before his passing (with the movie one of the few media to be dedicated to his memory).

A great departure from the past three films, Cage Match aims for being a cheesy 80's action comedy. Johnny Cage is spewing one-liners and jokes as usual, and the film embraces how cheesy it is, alongside its various references to 1980's pop culture. However, it still keeps the action as well as the violence and gore that fans of Mortal Kombat come to expect. Johnny gets a backstory to how he became skilled in martial arts, and the 80's style soundtrack is awesome.